Frog Hunt
by Fofa
Summary: When Marche gets transformed into a frog and runs away, everyone gets into a hectic mess just to FIND him.
1. Default Chapter

The following fan fic was inspired while I was playing FFTA when Marche got turned into a frog. Then everything else just wrote itself. I do not own the game rights, but I do have a cartridge.

Frog Hunt

Chapter 1: Morph and Run

Another day, another engagement. As least, that's what it seemed like for the legendary Clan Reaper.

It also started off as how it normally was; Marche, Ritz, Shara and Montblanc got to have all the fun, and the laws couldn't be any lazier. With Blades, Berserk, and Haste forbidden, how could it be any harder to be caught by the judge when none of the clan members had anything to do with them?

Even then, they had few opponents, who consisted of a Nu Mou Time Mage, three Moogles (Gadgeteer, Animist, and Juggler), and a Human Thief. The only clan that had an arrangement like this was Clan Clatz, and the surroundings didn't help them either, since it was entirely flat land, with a few cacti here and there.

As the Judge warped onto the scene, looking grand on his chocobo, he blew his starting whistle, "Fight!"

It was a race between Shara and Ritz on who went first, but Ritz won the race, and, taking advantage of her positioning and the Time Mage's rather weak defenses, used Nighthawk to take him down in a single strike, despite the fact that the attack was in plain sight.

The Judge awarded a judge point to Ritz, and then Shara made her move. Drawing out her Max's Oathbow, she quickly ran near the Gadgeteer and sniped him with an arrow with the power of Faster, preventing him from utilizing Auto-Regen.

Marche was next in line. The light reflected off both of his blades, Nagrarok and Sequence, had sparked fear into the nearby Thief. Seeing two very powerful swords was a rather frightening sight to just about anyone, and the Thief was no exception. He began to turn and run off, screaming his head off, but Marche was just fast enough to catch up and use Wood Veil. Roots sprouted from the ground, and started to wrap around the victim's legs, rendering him unable to move.

Montblanc pulled out a chocobo feather out of his pack, and waved it in the air. Jugglers don't normally have the animals on their side, but Montblanc knew the many benefits of it through the hard way.

When the sound of a chocobo stampede rang through the area, Marche immediately jumped out of the way, but the Thief wasn't so fortunate. Every single chocobo in that line ran him over like a car over a poor bug. After the stampede had cleared up, the Thief tried to stand up, but it was obvious he couldn't, and fell down, admitting himself to defeat.

Another Judge point was awarded to Montblanc, and Marche had just finished off the Gadgeteer.

Now with nowhere to run off and officially cornered, the Animist was shaking in his boots. Marche and Ritz prepared to do a combo, with Shara setting up an arrow and Montblanc pulling a dagger out of bag.

Then the Animist came up with a plan.

He pulled out his Satyr Flute, and threw it over his opponents. That threw off the attention of both the Assassin and the Paladin.

Seizing the opportunity, he slid beneath the four attackers and caught the flute he threw. Bringing it up to his lips, he began to play an all too familiar tune to any Animist.

"Marche! Ritz! Look out!" Montblanc screamed from nearly halfway down the battlefield.

Ritz turned her head, to see that the Frog Song was headed in her direction, and it was too late to dodge.

"No!"

Marche heroically jumped between the points, hoping the Frog Song would have no effect on him. Sadly, this was not the case.

In just a poof of mysterious, green gases, Marche had been transformed into a frog, warts and all.

The red haired Assassin looked around for the Paladin until she heard croaking sounds, which revealed a frog at her feet.

Grasping her fallen Masamune, she launched a Nighthawk as the Animist was running to the opposite side of the arena.

In fact, the attack struck him so hard, he was practically launched six feet in the air, then he landed on his front, his bag of animal resources landing just inches in front of him.

He tried to grasp his bag, but Shara laid her right foot on it, and preparing the arrow she never got to launch. As the tip of the arrow reflected off the shining sunlight, the Animist immediately scrambled onto his tiny legs and ran away.

The Animist didn't get very far when the arrow from Shara's greatbow buried itself into his back. He began to struggle trying to back up, but Shara kicked his bag into the air, which just happened to ricochet off his head, sending him down into defeat.

As the last Judge point was awarded to Shara and the Judge was declaring victory to Clan Reaper, Ritz picked up the transmogrified Marche. He croaked as she raised him to her face, which she immediately assumed was "help me."

From the looks of the Judge, he was in a hurry. "Look, I need to rush off to the Judge Conference in Sprohm, so all I'm going to do is revive Clan Clatz." He raised his Judge Sword in the air, which casted Full Life on the four fallen foes.

After that, he vanished into thin air, with Ritz, with Marche in her hands, dashing to his location, "Hey! Wait!" But when she reached the Judge, it was too late. Marche just did another depressed croak.

Clan Clatz left shortly when Montlblanc received what they had to award him, which was fifteen hundred Gil, a Snake Staff, and a Shell law card.

Ritz plopped Marche to the ground, and everyone circled him.

"So, what are we going to do, kupo?" Montblanc asked, the Judge having to leave early and all.

Shara brought out the bag of items, and began to search through it. After a few seconds of rumbling, she turned the bag upside down, making all of the items fall out.

"I don't get it. Why don't we have any Maiden Kisses, or Curealls at least?" she scratched her head.

"What?" Ritz questioned the Sniper. Montblanc sorted through the mess as well.

"Oops, kupo." Montblanc stuttered.

Ritz raised an eyebrow, "Montblanc, what do you mean?"

Montblanc began to shiver, "Er, uh, I think we used all of our Curealls at the Monster Bank, and I think we didn't think we'd ever use Maiden Kisses, so we sold all of them. Heh heh. . . Kupo." he tried to laugh it off, but Ritz was clearly mad now.

"You. . .WHAT!" she screamed at the Moogle.

The frightened frog suddenly jumped into the air, landing at least half a mile away from the clan.

"Marche! Get back here!" Shara yelled at the former human. That caught Ritz's attention, while she had a tight grip on Montblanc's antennae. Montblanc fell to the ground, and Ritz caught pursuit with Shara.

Seeing how far Marche could jump, it was pretty hard just to catch up to the frog, but Ritz began to speed up. "I'm the fastest one in the girl's track team at school! If I can't catch up to Marche, nothing can!" she was furiously thinking.

When Marche did an extra long jump, Ritz skidded to her stop after seeing what he jumped over.

The famous Barice Canyon, which happened to be the deepest canyon in all of Ivalice.

Shara had finally caught up with her clanswoman, only to see Ritz frozen in her spot. After seeing the canyon, she shuddered.

"I guessing Marche managed to jump over the canyon?" she asked her.

Ritz slowly nodded in response.

"Oh dear." Was all Shara could say.

AN: Yeah, and the storyline from here on gets rather hectic.


	2. The Search Begins!

Chapter 2: The Search Begins!

The sun was blazing hot in such a way that even someone would have to keep casting Blizzard on himself to stay cool.

Even at an oasis, nothing could stay cool for a mere five seconds. Pretty much all of the wildlife, which made their home at the oasis, had moved to other, cooler deserts.

A frog had kept waddling on the scorching sands in search of an oasis; after all, frogs did need water to survive.

The frog kept croaking, forgetting that, as a frog, he couldn't speak English.

"Now how in Ivalice am I supposed to get out of this one?" Marche, the missing leader of Clan Reaper, kept thinking to himself over and over again.

"And haven't the others found me yet? I'm probably going to die of dehydration if I stay in this stupid desert any longer!" he also panicked, and began to waddle a bit faster, but slowed down again, due to the amount of sweat he had already perspired. It was leaving a small trail that went along with his footprints.

After a few minutes, he sighed a heavy sigh of relief. An oasis in sight!

Marche did one giant leap into the body of water, making huge ripples into the liquid.

Taking a breath of air upon resurfacing, Marche squeaked a complaining croak.

"Ugh! This feels like taking a hot bath! . . . .But I suppose it's better than nothing." He mentally noted to himself, allowing himself to sink to the bottom of the oasis.

To his surprise, there were other frogs in the area, and from the looks of it, it looked like they were here for years.

But it was cut rather short when all of the frogs swam away from him.

"Wha?" Marche thought to himself, unaware that a shadow was glooming over him.

Suddenly, a child's hand had grabbed Marche and yanked him out of the water faster than anyone could yell "fire."

"Oh boy!" the human boy had squealed rather gleefully, with such an innocent look in his blue eyes.

Marche gulped, "Oh crud" he mentally cursed.

"Mommy! I found a frog!" the child yelled, running over to his brown haired mother, who was currently packing up some kind of chocobo carriage.

The woman turned her head towards the child, "Mark, what have I told you about taking frogs as pets?" she questioned him.

Taking a step back, the boy responded, "But Mommy! It's not poisonous! And I swear, I'll take good care of this time!" Hearing the "this time" part made Marche cringe.

Having taken a few seconds to think about it, the mother gave in, "All right, and if you manage to be good with this one, then we'll get you that puppy you wanted."

His eyes gleamed even more than they originally did, "Oh thanks mommy! I won't fail this time!"

After the child and his mother had boarded the chocobo carriage and were in the process of leaving the desert, Mark had placed Marche into a fish tank, which was filled with nice, cool water. It was definitely better than the oasis.

"Man, I could really use the others right about now!" Marche had mentally screamed in his own head.

(Meanwhile, in Cyril)

Tap tap tap tap!

"Whew, that should do it!" Ritz sighed, after hammering the last of the nails to hang up a missing poster, which had Marche's picture as a frog on it.

"And that's the last poster." Shara commented.

Ritz turned to her friend, "So, is there anything else we can do now?"

Shara shook her head, "No. We've already got a mission posted on the Pub boards, and Montblanc's gone shopping for Maiden Kisses."

"Well, there's no sense in staying here. We'll meet up with him at the Pub."

(A little bit later)

"All right, who ordered the 'Triple Large Cookie Sundae'?" the Vieran waitress had asked at the rounded table.

"ME! ME! ME!" Doned frantically shook his hand in the air.

The waitress handed the sundae to him, "Okay, okay, just don't shout next time, okay?"

"Okay." Doned simply said, and when the waitress left, he dug right in, not caring about being polite and all that. After all, he couldn't eat ice cream in St. Ivalice, so now was his chance.

Ritz and Shara turned away, trying to avoid the sight of Doned being rude in public (as well as the few clans who were staring at them because of it), seeing Montblanc and the rest of Clan Reaper coming back from the shops.

"Kupo, we got the Maiden Kisses, and a Cureall, just in case." Montblanc reported.

"Good. Now if we can just find him." Ritz responded.

Then Sis, the Clan's Archer, began to violently shake Ritz, for the third time that day. (AN: think of when, in Ruroni Kenshin, Misao is shaking him in her first episode.)

"It's all YOUR fault Malboro breath! How could you even let him get away? If I had been there, I would've disabled his legs, damn you!" she yelled in Ritz's ears.

"Stop calling me Malboro breath! Have you even considered your laundry smells like Coeurl droppings!" Ritz insulted back.

Kurt, the resident Dragoon, ran in and separated the two. "Siss! How many times have we already told you NOT to put your hands on Ritz?"

"Ugh," the Nu Mou Illusionist Hobbes began to comment, "if we're going to find Marche and get through this in a civilized manner is the focus on the task, not harassing each other!"

Doned pushed his finished treat to the side, "Question is, do we even WANT to turn Marche back!" he teasingly snickered.

That earned him a fist on the head from Ritz.

"OW!" Doned yelped.

"Another remark like that and it won't be on your head Doned." Ritz growled.

Salem, the group's one and only Ninja, pressed his finger onto his forehead. "Maybe we should split into two groups: one heading back to the scene of the transmogrification, and the second should investigate the nearby towns, particularly Muscadet." He suggested, knowing that Muscadet was the place closet to the area.

"An excellent suggestion." Hobbes smiled.

Charles, the moogle Thief and Time Mage, got out of his seat, "But if we DO look in the towns, what are the chances of someone finding a frog with a yellow wart on top of his head?"

Hobbes began to divide the clan into groups, "Alright; Ritz, Shara, and Salem, go back to where this all started. Everyone else, head to towns and ask questions. Doned, stay here in case anyone responds to either the missing posters or the mission contract.

Doned was still rubbing the sore spot on his head he got from Ritz, "Oh, so what am I now, Clan Reaper's receptionist?" he complained.

(And now, in case anyone was wondering about poor little Marche . . .)

Mark shoved the fish tank onto his rather messy dresser while Marche observed the new surroundings. The room he was stuck in was a complete pigsty! Heck, it was even worse than Mewt's locker at school, and THAT was messy.

"Don't worry little froggie! I'm gonna give you a name! Just let me get a book on names!" Mark told the frog as he left his room.

Marche brought himself to the surface, gasping for air. (Not that being able to breathe underwater was BAD thing, he was just used to oxygen.) But as soon, as he drew in his breath, he immediately drew it back in, having been revolted by the stench of the room. It obviously smelt as bad as it looked.

"Oh God! How am I going to survive THIS!" he cursed. Then his stomach rumbled, and he had realized he didn't have anything to eat in the previous hour or so. (Journey from the Delia Dunes to Cyril should last about an hour, at minimum anyway.)

A fly began to wonder around the tank, not noticing Marche. After seeing all those cartoons for God knows how many hours of being alone in the house with nothing else to do, Marche figured he was desperate for something to eat.

He lashed out his tongue and got the bug on the first try.

However, upon tasting the buzzing insect, Marche immediately spat the fly back out. "Eating bugs isn't all it's cracked up to be." He thought, sighing a very depressed croak.

(End Chapter 2)


	3. A Trail

Chapter 3: A Trail

"Hey, Gorf!" Mark was talking to Marche with his new name (which was really just frog backwards), "Isn't it so pretty in Cyril when it's the summer?" he asked, turning his head to look outside at the pretty scenery.

"Not when you're a frog, no!" Marche mentally responded. But then again, he was getting kind of impatient. Especially when your entire body was rearranged and you couldn't remember where even your lungs were. Better than being a turtle though. (They could breathe through their rear ends, and that's probably not the best thing to go through.)

As the young frog looked out the window, he saw two of his clan members, Salem and Kurt!

"Guys!" he yelled in his head. He performed a giant leap, which would've gotten him past the window, except for the fact that the window was locked closed. All of the time in the sun must've boiled his brain.

Wham!

Sadly for Marche, Salem and Kurt were busy talking to people (which were hopefully about clues concerning his whereabouts), and even then, they were rather far from the window, so they probably wouldn't have noticed in the first place.

"Gorf!" Mark reacted at Marche's action, and as Marche slid down the window (he was wet and slippery after all), Mark grabbed him.

"Bad Gorf! Bad frog!" he yelled at Marche. Mark put him back into the fish tank, "No dinner for you tonight, got it?" he finished before leaving his room to do chores. (Which, unfortunately, didn't include cleaning his room.)

Marche let out a small sigh, "Actually, no dinner would be better if all three of my meals didn't consist of flies! Particularly ones that weren't left for weeks in fly traps!"

(Back with Doned the Receptionist)

Upon seeing Kurt and Salem return from their little job, Doned jumped out of his seat from a small table within the Pub and walked to the duo. "I'm not getting any luck, are you guys?"

The Bangaa shook his head, "No we aren't. No one hasss reported sseeing a frog nearby with yellow wart on its head."

Doned frowned, "Well, that's one town down."

"Maybe Ritz and Shara are having better luck." Salem sighed.

Kurt turned around, "That's Cyril down, now we better get going into Sphrom. You know Hobbes and Sis are looking in Baguba Port and Muscadet."

(With Hobbes and Sis)

"Sis! Put him down NOW!" the angry Nu Mou furiously screamed at the Archer. It wasn't often one would see one lose their temper, but now was such a case.

Currently, Sis was really demanding information, and if they didn't have any (which was the only answer they've gotten thus far), she either shot one of their important limbs, or go in a killing spree.

Staring at him like a deer in the headlights, Sis weakened her grip on the Soldier she was ready to kill, and dropped him.

"She's a violent banshee! Run for your lives!" he began to scream while running away from the pair as fast as he could.

Hobbes sighed a really deep and rather frustrated sigh, "Sis, do you really have to kill someone who doesn't give you what you want?"

She crossed her arms tightly, and pouted, "Hey, if there's something I want, nothing, and I MEAN nothing stops me from getting it!"

"Obviously." Hobbes mentally noted.

"Oh heck," Sis continued, "the only reason I joined the clan was because I wanted Marche to be mine!"

The look on Hobbes' face changed from furious to shocked, "WHAT!" he stammered.

Sis clasped her hands together, and the look in her eyes resembled that of a regular romance dreamer.

"He's so handsome and dreamy! He's everything I dream of! A hottie!" Sis practically exclaimed to all of Ivalice.

Five words could best describe Hobbes' current mood: stunned, horrified, shocked, surprised, and a bit disgusted too, all at the same time (along with the look of fear on his face.)

Taking a look at her fellow clan member's face and body expression, she immediately made a sour face, "What?"

Hobbes rushed his hands to his ears, "I did NOT need to hear that!"

The Illusionist began to run as fast as his legs could carry him from the insane Viera.

An anger vein was ready to violently burst off of Sis' head, and she started to pursue, "Get back here!"

(At the scene of the crime)

"Uh. . .Kupo. . .. It's soOOOooo hot!" Charles whined, dragging his feet and his hands hanging.

Ritz and Shara were following Charles, and they weren't too far from him either.

"If I knew Charles was going to be complaining the whole time, I would've brought someone else. Even having Doned around would've been better than listening to him whine!" Ritz mumbled.

"I HEARD THAT!" came the furious reply from Charles.

"Then why did you volunteer to replace Salem instead of going with Kurt?" Ritz glared at him.

The moogle shook his head, "You KNOW how much Kurt and I don't get along! Don't you remember that one time when he hurled me across the room while we were in the Cadoan shop!"

Shara crossed her arms, "As much fun as it was paying most of our several million gil to replace the destroyed walls, shelves, and equipment, you don't have to keep reminding us about it!"

Charles eyes lit up as he saw a miracle, "An oasis!"

"Don't try to change the subject!" Shara said in a stern voice.

"WAAATTTTEERRRRR!" Charles screamed as suddenly ran faster than an Olympic champion toward the oasis.

Ritz slapped her forehead in frustration, shaking her head, "Why didn't he do that earlier?"

"FORRRE!" Charles jumped in the air, immediately curling himself into a ball, landing in the small body of water.

The coming wave splashed a large radius, including the small thief's fellow clan members.

"Ack! Charles!" Shara yelped.

The little moogle raised his head above the cool waters, and stared at the other two.

Squeezing as much water as she could out of her hair, Ritz formed an angry expression on her face, "If it weren't so hot here, you'd be toast Charles. Besides, 'fore' is for golf."

Smack!

"Ow!" Charles twitched, as a frog landed on his head.

"Ribbit!" the frog croaked.

Picking up and examining the frog, Shara noticed something.

"Is it just me or does this frog look like Marche's condition.

Frogs began to land all over the general vicinity, some in the sand, others back in the water, and a few landed on the travelers.

Ritz picked up one of the frogs herself, and made the same observation. "I think Shara's right. Think we should see if the Maiden's Kisses will have any effect on them."

"You two go on and do that." Charles tossed the frog on his head over to them, "As for me, I'm chillaxin'." He said, doing a back float on the oasis.

The girls were silent for a few seconds, when Shara asked no one in particular, "Where in Ivalice did he get that term?"

"Not me," Ritz immediately responded, "Had to have been Doned. Marche never uses slang."

Taking out a spray bottle and emptying the contents of the Maiden's Kiss container into it, Ritz closed the bottle tightly and shook it up. "Shara, could you gather up the frogs into one place? It would be easier on me if you did." She requested.

As soon as they were all gathered in that one spot, Ritz sprayed the entire bottle's containment onto the group of frogs.

A large, white glow emitted from the frogs, which became a blinding light of the same color. The group of three covered their eyes as quickly as they could (although poor Charles got blinded).

When the light died down, Ritz and Shara uncovered their eyes, and were surprised at what they soon saw.

Clanners from all races, all jobs, all levels of society, and all ages (as well as vast numbers) returned from their imprisonment.

"We. . .we. ." a Human White mage stammered.

"We're FREE!" Another Human screamed at the top of his lungs. And with that, every single Viera, Moogle, Nu Mou, Human and Bangaa originally trapped in frog forms dashed off to the nearest town, leaving behind Ritz, Shara, the currently blinded Moogle.

"Ahhhh. . . .My eyessss. . ." Charles whimpered.

Two more frogs, both of which were purple, hopped out of the water, wondering what all the commotion was. One croaked, with the other following.

"Better use the spray on these guys too." Ritz mumbled to herself, spraying the waters onto the remainders.

A flash shone on the area, but it wasn't as bright as the big one, so they didn't need to cover their eyes.

Two Viera, one being an Assassin and the other being a Red Mage, were looking over themselves.

"Sis. . .we've been saved! We're no longer frogs!" the Assassin said to the Red Mage.

"It's. . .a miracle!"

Noticing Ritz, the Red Mage asked her, "Did you save us?"

"Yeah," she replied, rubbing the back of her head, "As well as all of those other 'victims'."

Shara crossed her arms, "We're looking for one of our own clan members, he was turned into a frog, but we haven't had any luck."

Charles finally snapped out of that little daze by the earlier shining light, and removed his hands from his eyes, "What happened?" he asked.

Not hearing the Moogle, the Assassin spoke, "What does your friend look like?"

"Just like any green frog, except for the yellow wart on his head."

The Red Mage's eyes widened, "We saw that frog a few hours ago before you guys arrived."

Ritz raised her head, "Really?"

"Unfortunately, you're too late."

"What?"

"A kid grabbed him as his new 'pet' and took him away. Otherwise, we don't know much else."

Ritz's jaw was about to drop, but she kept it from doing so. Now how were they going to find him?

In a moment of intelligence, Charles asked the two, "Did you get the color of the kid's hair?"

"Brown." Replied the Assassin.

Shara sighed, "Now we're going to have to go into more detail with our searches. He could be in any of the towns without us noticing him."

Ritz turned to the way they came, "We better get moving." She said in a serious tone, walking away.

"Ritz!" Shara yelled after her, with Charles catching pursuit.

"Wait!" The Red Mage called.

Turning her head back, Ritz responded, "What?"

"If you're in a clan, we'd be more than happy to join you guys." She answered. "I'm Frieda, and this is Eustine, my twin."

"Welcome then." Ritz said.

(AN: You can officially kill me for keeping you guys on your toes for so long. And before I forget, the next chapter is the last.)


End file.
